p71"'Well, perhaps this can be explained away, too!'"Page71.
Selby was busy trying to pry up one of the bricks with the knife, when suddenly the point snapped.
"You've broken it," exclaimed Henry, who was standing nearest.
"If I have, I'll pay for it," said Selby, with a vicious look. "I pay my debts in full every time. Hello! This looks like something interesting! Well, perhaps this can be explained away, too!" He picked up from the mortar under the loose brick a glittering something and held it up with a triumphant air.
"What is it?" asked Ralston.
"It's my watch-chain and my charm, that I was robbed of; that's what it is." He shook it in his excitement until the links rattled. "Is that evidence or isn't it? Does that prove anything or doesn't it?"
"Is that chain yours?" asked Underwood gravely.
"Of course it's mine. My initials are on the charm and the date it was presented to me. I guess there isn't any one going to claim that chain but me."
He took it to Ralston and Hadley, talking excitedly. Underwood sat silent, with his head a little bent and his eyes on the floor. He looked as though a weight had fallen upon him. Burton tried to catch Leslie's eye for a reassuring glance, but she was anxiously watching her father and was regardless of everything else.
"It looks bad--bad," muttered Hadley, handing the chain back to Selby.
Henry had been glowering at Selby in somber silence, and now he startled every one by speaking out with a slow emphasis that stung.
"I've heard it said that those who hide can find," he said.
Selby whirled upon him. "Meaning me?"
Henry lifted his shoulders in an exasperating shrug. "You went pretty straight to the right brick."
Selby walked up to Henry with out-thrust chin, and spoke in a manner that struck Burton as deliberately offensive and provocative.
"That's what you have to say, is it? Now my advice to you is that you say just as little as possible. You're not far enough out of the woods yourself to holler very loud."
"How so? Do you mean now that it was I who robbed you?" Henry asked tauntingly. "It would have been quite easy for me to wear my father's cloak, if I wanted to throw suspicion on him; and to hide these things in the room, wouldn't it? Come, now! Was it I, or wasn't it?"
Selby hesitated an instant. Burton wondered whether he were considering the advisability of changing his line of attack to that so audaciously suggested by Henry. Perhaps he regretted that he had not accused Henry in the first place, but saw that it was impossible consistently to do so now.
"It's the sort of thing that you might do, easy enough, we all know that," he said bitingly. "We haven't forgotten your tricks here six years ago, and you needn't think it. Just because the police didn't catch you, you needn't think that you fooled anybody."
"Gentlemen," the doctor tried to interpose, but no one heard him. Henry was evidently enjoying himself. He seemed curiously determined to provoke Selby to the uttermost, and the insolent mockery of his manner was all the more strange because of its contrast to his former taciturnity.
"You're a poor loser, Selby. What's a few dollars more or less to make a fuss over? Some time you may lose something that you really will miss. As for this robbery, if you really were held up,--I don't know whether you were or not, since I have only your word for it,--I'm sure you didn't have money enough to pay for that cheap handkerchief. And as for that plated chain!" He lifted his shoulders.
"What's mine is mine," said Selby, with the ineffective viciousness of a badgered animal.
"But the point is, is everything yours that you think is?"
"I'm going to find out who got my money," said Selby doggedly. "And as for you,--I'll get you yet."
"Sorry, but you can't have me. I'm already engaged," said Henry deliberately.
The retort seemed to carry Selby entirely beyond his own control.
"You're very clever at making speeches, aren't you? Almost as clever as you are at throwing people, and breaking their backs--"
But Dr. Underwood again interposed and this time successfully.
"All this is aside from the question. We are not here to study ancient history in any of its forms. This committee was invited here to consider the robbery of Mr. Selby, and anything else is beside the mark."
"And my watch-chain? Is that beside the mark? Found concealed here under your hearth. Does that mean nothing?"
The doctor looked so unhappy that Burton took the answer upon himself.
"It means exactly as much and as little as the handkerchief," he said. "It means that the place has been 'salted' in expectation of your visit, and if you want to go into the investigating business to some effect, you'll set yourselves to finding out who did it."
"Never mind going into that," said Underwood a little anxiously. "These gentlemen were invited here to investigate me, and here my interest in the matter ends. If they are satisfied--"
"But we are not," interrupted Selby. "Satisfied! I'm satisfied that we've got evidence enough to hang a man on, and I shall demand the arrest of Dr. Underwood."
"Then you will do so on your own responsibility," said Ralston, in decided tones. "I think Mr. Burton is right. The evidence was so plainly intended to be found that it amounts to nothing. I, for one, shall not allow myself to be made a laughing stock by taking action on it, and I am sure that Mr. Hadley agrees with me."
"I--certainly--ah--should not wish to be made a laughing stock," said Mr. Hadley, with a reproachful look at Selby.
Selby picked up his hat and made for the door. "You needn't think I'm going to drop this," he said with bitter emphasis. He addressed the room in general, but his look fell on Henry Underwood.
Hadley and Ralston also rose.
"If he acts on this evidence," said Ralston, addressing Dr. Underwood, "you may count on Mr. Hadley and myself to state exactly how it was found. We will say good night now, and I hope your foot will be all right in a day or two."
"Thank you," said Underwood. "Henry, will you see the gentlemen to the door?"
Henry went out with the committee. Incidentally, he did not return to the surgery. From his place by the window, Burton saw the men depart. Selby, who had left the room some minutes before the others, was the last to leave the house. Indeed, the others waited at the gate some minutes before he came hurriedly out to join them. Burton wondered if he had occupied the time in poking into other rooms in his absurd "search."
Leslie had sprung up and gone to her father. She put one arm around his neck and lifted his face with a sort of fierce affection.
"Why do you look so depressed, father?" she demanded. "How dare you let yourself go down like that?"
He wrinkled his face in one of those queer smiles.
"I know, my dear, that it is the proper and right-minded thing for a man with a sprained ankle to go around capering and dancing for joy, and I am sorry not to be living up to your just expectations. I'll try to improve."
She turned with one of her swift transitions to Burton. "What do you think of it?"
"Exactly what I told the committee," he said, and was glad that he could say it promptly.
"You can understand now how I feel,--as though a net were drawing around me. It is so intangible and yet so horribly real. What can one do?"
Instead of answering he asked a question in his turn.
"Why does your brother hate Selby?"
"Wouldn't any one hate him?"
"Well, then, why does Selby hate your brother?"
"I don't know that he does."
"Yes, he does. They hate each other royally, and it is nothing new, either."
Underwood groaned, and Leslie promptly patted his shoulder.
"Poor papa, does it hurt?"
"Yes," he sputtered.
Then he pulled himself together and turned again to Burton. "Henry has an unfortunate way of provoking antagonism. But all this has no more to do with this robbery than it has to do with the spots on the sun. Even Selby doesn't accuse Henry of holding him up. I am the target of his attacks, thank Heaven."
"Why this pious gratitude?"
"I can stand it better than Henry. Possibly you did not understand Selby's slur. It has been the tragedy of Henry's life that he crippled Ben Bussey. It was ten years ago that it happened. They had a tussle. Ben was the older, but Henry was larger and stronger, and he was in a violent temper. He threw Ben in such a way that his spine was permanently injured. But the effect on Henry was almost equally serious. His hand has been against friend and foe alike. I don't consider that he was responsible for what happened here a few years later."
"Of course not. He had nothing to do with it," said Leslie. Burton saw that she had missed the significance of the doctor's remark,--and he was glad she had. As the doctor said, that matter had nothing to do with the robbery, and Henry was not implicated in the present trouble. He turned to the doctor. "I don't want to force myself upon you in the character of a pushing Perseus, but if you have no objections, I should like to spend the night in this room."
The doctor looked at him with the countenance of a chess player who is looking several moves ahead. "Why?" he asked.
"I have an idea that the person who made such elaborate preparations for your committee may be curious to learn how much of his cache was unearthed, and, knowing that the committee has been here, may come before morning to take a look. I'd like to receive him properly. I can't at this moment imagine anything that would give me more unalloyed pleasure. As no one knows of my being here, I hope the gentleman may not yet have been put upon his guard. It is evident that he has been able to get into this room before, and possibly he might try again."
"But you won't be comfortable here," protested Leslie.
"I shall be more than comfortable. That couch is disgraceful luxury compared with what I am accustomed to when camping. May I stay, Doctor?"
Dr. Underwood's grave face relaxed into a sardonic smile.
"The house is yours!"
"Thank you! I was horribly afraid you would refuse. Is this room locked at night?"
"No."
"This door opens into a back hall, I noticed. Where does that lead?"
"To the kitchen and back stairs. Also, at the other end, to the side door of the house, opening out into the garden and to a path which runs down to the side street."
"Is that outside door locked at night?"
"Oh, yes."
"Yet--some one has been able to get into this room without detection. That could only have been at night."
"But why should any one wish to?" protested the doctor uncomfortably.
"The heart is deceitful and wicked. Your faith in human nature does you honor, but I am afraid it has also got you into trouble. However, we'll hope that it may also serve to put an end to the trouble. When we find the man who hid these claptrap stage properties in here, we will find the man who knows something about the robbery. It seems to me a fair guess that he may come back to this room tonight to investigate; but in any event there isn't anything else I can do tonight, and it will flatter my sense of importance to feel that I am trying to do something. Now, if I may, I will assist you to your room, and then say good night."
Leslie, who had been waiting beside her father, rose. "I hope you won't be too uncomfortable," she said.
"My dear," her father interrupted, "I recognize in Mr. Burton the type that would rather be right than comfortable. We are in his hands, and we may as well accept the situation gracefully. The couch isn't a bad one, Burton. I have frequently spent the night here when I have come in late. Yonder door leads to a lavatory. And I hope you may not be disturbed."
Burton laughed. He had all the eagerness of the amateur. "I'm hoping that I may be! Now if you'll lean on my shoulder and pilot the way, I'll take you to your room."
The doctor accepted his assistance with a whimsical recognition of the curiousness of the situation. "That I should be putting myself and my affairs into your hands in this way is probably strange, but more strangely I can't make it seem strange," he said, when Burton left him.
When Burton came downstairs, Leslie was waiting for him.
"I want to thank you," she said impulsively.
"I haven't done anything yet."
"But you are going to."
"I am going to try." Then the conscience of the ambassador nudged his memory. After all, he was here for another and a specific purpose, and it behooved him to remember it. "If I succeed, will you have a different answer to send to Philip?" he asked, with a searching look.
She clasped her hands together upon her breast with the self-forgetful gesture he had noticed before, and her face was suddenly radiant. "Oh, yes, yes!" she cried.
Very curiously, her eagerness made Burton conscious of a sudden coolness toward his mission. Of course he ought to rejoice at this assurance that she was really fond of Philip and that nothing kept them apart but her sensitive pride, and he had sense enough to recognize that he was going to be ashamed of his divided feeling when he had time to think it over. But in the meantime the divided feeling was certainly there, with its curious commentary on our aboriginal instincts. He smiled a little grimly at himself, as he answered.
"Thank you! I hope that I may claim that promise from you very soon. I shall certainly do my best to have a right to remind you of it. Now I am going to say good night and walk ostentatiously away. That is a part of the game. You can leave the front door unlocked, and I'll let myself in when I think the coast is all clear. The door bolts, I see. And I'll find my way to the surgery all right."
"There is always a light in the hall."
"Then it will be plain sailing. Good night. And be sure to keep Mrs. Bussey out of the way while I am breaking in."
She laughed, as though he jested. But as he walked back to the hotel to make some necessary arrangements for his night's camping, he hoped she would not wholly disregard that injunction.
Half an hour later Burton returned--most unostentatiously. In fact, he made himself think of a beginner in burglary as he hugged the shadowy side of the street and sought the shelter of the trees in getting across the garden. If one were going to do this sort of thing, one might as well do it in proper style. The front door yielded noiselessly to his touch, illustrating the advantage of having an accomplice within, and he was safely inside. He bolted the door and made his way through the dimly lit hall to the surgery. The whole entry had occupied less than a minute. He was breathing quickly, but it was from excitement. It was years since he had been in any sort of an adventure. He felt like a college boy again.
The surgery was sufficiently lit by the diffused light of street-lamp and moon to enable him to see his way about. He had brought with him the electric pocket lamp which he carried with him when travelling, but he did not intend to use it unless necessary. His plan was to keep as quiet as possible and wait for the anticipated visitor. If the person who had had access to the room to "salt" it were at all curious about the result of the committee's visit, he ought, logically, to come at the earliest possible moment to investigate. Burton had planned to occupy the time by writing to Rachel, and he now pulled an armchair into such a position that he could get enough of the thin moonlight from the window to see his way across his writing pad, and settled himself to the familiar task.
"My adored Rachel," he began, and then he stopped. It wasn't going to be the easiest letter in the world to write. He had been less than a day in High Ridge, yet already he had got so far away from the Putney atmosphere that he was conscious of a jolt in trying to present the situation here to Mrs. Overman. Rachel was of course the paragon of womankind. He had been a freshman at college when she married Overman, and he had accepted in perfect good faith the theory that as a consequence he was always to live the life of a Blighted Being. It had been the tacit understanding between them ever since, and he was hardly conscious that her new widowhood had put any new significance into their old relation. For years he had come and gone at her beck and call, lived on her smiles and survived her frowns with more or less equanimity, all as a bounden knight should do. It had almost become a secondary occupation. But as time went on, occasions had arisen when his account of facts had to be somewhat tempered for the adored Rachel. She was just as adorable as ever, of course, but--she didn't understand people who didn't live her kind of a life. Burton felt instinctively that the whole Underwood situation would strike her the wrong way. She would simply regard it as something that could never by any possibility have happened to any one in her class, and that would end it. If Philip were going to marry Miss Underwood--and Philip was mighty lucky to have the chance--it behooved him to tell his story warily so as not to prejudice Rachel against her future daughter-in-law. He started in again, with circumspection.
"I am writing you by the light of the fair silver moon. Does that make you think of the luny,--I mean lunar--epistles I used to write you,--the almanac-man alone remembers how many years ago! I wrote by moonlight then for romantic reasons,--now for strategical,--but that is a subject which can only be continued in my next, so please keep up your interest.
"I have seen Miss Underwood, and I wish to assure you in the first place that Philip has shown his usual good taste and discrimination by falling in love with her. She is a beautiful girl, and more. She has charm and sweetness and manner and dignity. I'll report any other qualities she may possess as I discover them. I should judge her to be somewhat older than Philip, but I am the last man in the world with a right to regard that as an obstacle.
"She has as yet given me no final answer in the matter which you commissioned me to lay before her, for the following reason:
"Her father, who is a physician, and who impresses me as a very original, attractive and honorable man, is at present under a curious shadow of popular distrust. There was a highway robbery here a short time ago, and the man robbed charges that Dr. Underwood was the robber. I am sure there is not the slightest ground for such a charge, but the people seem to have taken an attitude of distrust and suspicion toward both the doctor and his son, and you can understand Miss Underwood's natural feeling that until her father is vindicated as publicly as he has been assailed, she will not give any encouragement to Philip's suit. I have her word for it (and what is more, her radiant look for it), that this is all that keeps her from listening at this time. If you will tell Philip this, I am sure it will have the effect upon his spirits which we have both so anxiously desired. I have not the slightest doubt about the doctor's being cleared. He is a most delightful man, and his son--" Burton held his pen suspended. Henry did not lend himself to a phrase. There was something about him that ran off into the shadowy unknown. He ended his sentence lamely,--"is something of a character.
"Of course I shall stay on at High Ridge and bend every energy to clearing up this matter without delay. It can hardly prove very difficult, though there are some curious and unusual features in the case."It is unnecessary for me to say that the thought that he is carrying out the wishes of his adored Rachel is the chief joy in life of her
"Blighted Being."
It was the way in which he had always signed his letters to her since her marriage. He wrote the words now with the cheerful unconsciousness of habit, and folded his letter for mailing. Then after a moment he rose and walked softly to the window. Putting the curtain aside, he stood for some time looking out across the lawn. His window looked not toward Rowan, but toward the side street, a hundred and fifty feet away. The moon was clear and high, and the black and white of its light and shadow made a scene that would have appealed to any lover of the picturesque. It would delight a poet or a philosopher he thought, and that brought Henry Underwood again to his mind. He was a curious man,--a man to give one pause. There was something of the poet and something of the philosopher in him, as witness his speeches in the garden, but there was something else, also. If the moodiness which was so obvious had manifested itself in the tricks that had defied the police and scandalized the family, it went near to the line of the abnormal. It would seem that the accusation was neither admitted nor proved, but the hotel clerk had referred to it, Selby had openly charged him with it, and the doctor evidently did not wish the matter discussed. Well, it had nothing to do with the present affair, unless--unless--Oh, of course it had nothing to do with the present affair.
The figure of a man moving with a sort of stealthy swiftness among the shadows of the garden caught his eye, and instantly he was alert. The man crossed an open patch of moonlight and, with a curious feeling that it was what he had expected, Burton recognized Henry Underwood. He came directly toward the side of the house where the surgery was, and a moment later Burton heard the outer door of the back hall open, and footsteps went past his closed door.
Burton pressed his electric light to look at his watch. It was two o'clock. He turned back to the window, with a feeling of irritation. Henry Underwood might be a poet and a philosopher, but he was also a fool, or he would not be wandering at two A.M. through a town that was already smouldering with suspicion of the Underwood family. It was, to say the least, imprudent. Burton wished he had not seen him. Probably his errand was entirely innocent and easily to be explained, but the human mind is a fertile field, and a seed of suspicion flourishes like the scriptural grain of mustard.
There was a red glow in the sky over the trees of the garden. Burton wondered if it could be the morning glow. It was hardly time for that. He was speculating upon it idly when his ear caught the sound of returning footsteps in the back hall,--though this time they were so soft that if he had not been alert for any sound he would hardly have noticed them. He drew aside from the window, hid himself in the shadow of the long curtain, and waited. Unless the person in the hall entered this room, he had no right to question his movements.
The door was opened with noiseless swiftness, and a man stood for an instant in the opening. His head was bent forward and he carried a light in his hand,--whether small lantern or shaded candle Burton did not have time to see, for almost at the instant of opening the door the light was quenched. Burton was certain that neither sound nor movement had betrayed his own presence, yet after that single moment of reconnoitering, the light went out and the door was shut sharply. Burton sprang toward it, stumbled over the armchair he had himself placed in the way, picked himself up, and reached the door,--only to look into the blank blackness of the back hall. There was a faint quiver of sound in the air, as though the outer house door had jarred with a sudden closing, and he ran down the hall; the door was unlocked and yielded at once to his touch. For a moment everything was still; then he heard the clatter of feet on a board walk. It was as though some one, escaping, had waited to see if he would be pursued and then had fled on. Burton ran around to the rear of the house, thankful that the moonlight now made his way plain. There was a board walk running from the kitchen door to a high wall at the end of the lot, but the sound he had heard was momentary, not continuous, so, on the theory that the man had crossed the walk, not run down the hundred feet of it to the alley, he ran on to the east side of the house. There was no one to be seen, of course. Any one familiar with the location could have hidden himself in any of a hundred shadows. The lot was filled with trees, and one large oak almost rested against the house. It reminded him of Henry's remark at dinner about getting down from the second story by the oak on the east side, and he glanced up. It looked an easy climb--and two of the house windows were lit. On the impulse of the moment, he swung himself up into the branches. As he came level with the lit windows, Henry Underwood passed one of them, still fully dressed. He was so near that Burton was certain for a moment that he himself must have been discovered, and he waited a moment in suspense. But Henry had passed the window without looking out.
What Burton had expected to discover was perhaps not clear to his own mind. If he had analyzed the intuition he followed, he would have said that he was acting on the theory that Henry had looked into his room, and then, fleeing out of doors to throw him off the scent--by that side door to which he obviously carried a key, since he had let himself in that way shortly before--had regained his room by this schoolboy stairway. The feeling had been strong upon him that he was close on the trail of some one fleeing. But if in fact it had been Henry, how could he challenge him, here in his own room? Clearly he was within his rights here,--a fact that was emphasized when, after a minute, he came to the window and pulled the curtain down.
Burton dropped to the ground and retraced his steps around the rear of the house. Here he saw that the board walk ran down to a gate,--the gate in the rear by which he had seen Mrs. Bussey talking in excited fashion to a man, earlier in the day. The gate opened at Burton's touch and he looked out into an empty alley. It was so obvious that this would have been the natural and easy way of escape that he could only blame himself for folly in chasing an uncertain sound of footsteps past the gate around to the east of the house.
He found his way back to the surgery a good deal humiliated. The mysterious intruder had been almost within reach of his arm, and had got away without leaving a trace, and all that was gained was that hereafter he would be more alert than ever, knowing himself watched. It was not a very creditable beginning. Burton threw himself down on the couch, and his annoyance did not prevent his dropping, after a time, into a sound sleep.
Therefore he did not see how that red glow on the sky above the trees deepened and made a bright hole in the night, long before the morning came to banish the darkness legitimately.
Burton awoke from his short and uneasy sleep with a sudden start and the feeling that some one had been near him. The room was, however, empty and gray in the early morning light. As full recollection of the events that had passed came back to his mind, an ugly thought pressed to the front. Was it Henry who was persecuting the doctor? Or, rather, was there a possibility that it was not Henry? It certainly was Henry who had been abroad at two in the night,--that was indisputable. Burton had seen him too clearly to be in doubt. Was it not straining incredulity to doubt that it was Henry who had tried to enter his room a few minutes later? If it had been a stranger, would Henry not have been aroused by the opening and shutting of the outside door? It was not a pleasant idea that Miss Underwood's brother was the culprit in the case, but it appeared that he had already laid himself open to suspicion in connection with the series of petty annoyances which his sister had narrated. The local police might not be expert detectives, but they must have average intelligence and experience. And that Henry was moved by a sort of dumb antagonism toward his father was quite obvious.
Burton jumped up from the couch, where he had been revolving the situation, and a scrap of paper, dislodged from his clothing, fell to the floor. He picked it up and read:
"Spy!"Go back, spy, or you'll be sorry."
In spite of nerves that were ordinarily steady enough, Burton felt a thrill of something like dismay. An unfriendly presence had bent over him while he slept, left this message of sinister import, and vanished as he had vanished into the night when pursued. The thought that he had lain helpless under the scrutiny of this soft-footed, invisible enemy was more disturbing than the threat itself. It gave him a sensation of repulsion that made him understand Miss Underwood's feeling. The situation was not merely bizarre. It was intolerable.
He examined the slip of paper carefully. It was long and narrow and soft,--such a strip as might have been torn from the margin of a newspaper. The writing was with a very soft, blunt pencil. A pencil such as he had seen carpenters use in marking boards might have made those heavy lines. The hand was obviously disguised and not very skilfully, for while occasional strokes were laboriously unsteady, others were rapid and firm.
He folded the paper and put it carefully away in his pocketbook. If this were Henry's work, he undoubtedly was also the author of the anonymous typewritten notices which had been circulated in the town. Why was the message written this time instead of typewritten? A typewriter in the corner of the room caught his eye, as though it were itself the answer to his question. With a swift suspicion in his mind, he sat down before it and wrote a few lines. Upon comparing these with the typewritten slip which the doctor had shown him the evening before, and which still lay on the mantel, it was perfectly clear that they had both been produced by the same machine. Some one who had easy and unquestioned access to this room used the doctor's typewriter to tick off insinuations against its owner! It seemed like substantial proof of Henry's guilt. Who else could use this room without exciting comment? The audacity of the scheme was hardly more surprising than its simple-mindedness. Burton crushed his sheet in his hand and tossed it into the wastepaper basket with a feeling of contempt.
While he made a camp toilet he wondered why he had let himself in for all this. He had acted on a foolish impulse. There were roily depths in the matter which it would probably be better not to stir up, and it must now be his immediate care to get out of the whole connection as soon as possible. He had no desire to play detective against Miss Underwood's brother. Thank heaven that her acceptance of his tender for Philip had been so conditioned! He would withdraw while the matter was still nebulous.
There came a tap at the door and Mrs. Bussey entered.
"Breakfast's ready," she announced. Then she waited a moment and added in a shamefaced undertone that betrayed the unfamiliarity of the message, "Miss Underwood's compliments!" and vanished in obvious embarrassment.
Burton had to laugh at that, and with more cheerfulness than he would have thought possible he found his way to the breakfast room. Miss Underwood herself smiled a welcome at him from the head of the table.
"You are to breakfast tête-à-tête with me," she said, answering his unconscious look of inquiry. "Mother always breakfasts in her room, and poor father will have to do the same this morning. Henry has been gardening for hours. So you have only myself left!"
"I can imagine worse fates," said Burton. And then, with a curiosity about Henry which was none the less keen because he did not intend to make it public, he asked: "Is your brother an enthusiastic gardener?"
"It is the only thing he cares about, but it would be stretching the word to call him enthusiastic, I'm afraid. Poor Henry!"
"Why?"
"I mean because of Ben Bussey."
"Oh, yes."
"It has made him so moody and strange. You see, he has had Ben before him all his life as an object lesson on the effects of temper, and mother has rather pointed the moral. She thinks that all troubles are the punishment of some wrongdoing, and she has had a good deal of influence with Henry always. It has made him resentful toward every one."
"It's unfortunate. Wouldn't it be better to send Ben away?"
"Father hoped to cure him, so he kept him here. Besides, he couldn't afford to keep him anywhere else, I'm afraid. It would be expensive to send him to a hospital,--and father can do everything for him that any one could. No one realizes as I do how father has worried over the whole unhappy situation. He has tried everything for Ben,--even to electricity. And that made trouble, too!"
"Why? Did Ben object?"
"No, but his mother did. I think the popular prejudice against father on all sides is largely the effect of Mrs. Bussey's talking. She is an ignorant woman, as you can see."
"What is Ben's attitude? Is he resentful?"
"Not at all. He is a quiet, sensible fellow, who takes things philosophically. He knows it was all an accident, of course. And he knows that father has done everything possible, besides taking on himself the support of both Ben and his mother for life."
"That is more than mere justice."
"Oh, father is like that! Besides, they would be helpless. Ben's father was a roving character who lived for years among the Indians. He hasn't been heard of for years, and no one knows whether he is dead or alive. He had practically deserted them years before Ben's accident. So father felt responsible for them, because of Henry."
"I see," said Burton thoughtfully.
Just then the door was thrown suddenly open, and Mrs. Bussey popped in, her face curiously distorted with excitement.
"The Spriggs' house is burnt!" she exclaimed, with obvious enjoyment in chronicling great news.
"How do you know?" demanded Leslie.
"Milkman told me. Burnt to the ground."
"Was any one hurt?"
"No," she admitted regretfully. Then she cheered up, and added: "But the house was burnt to the ground! Started at two o'clock in the night, and they had ter get outer the winder to save their lives. Not a rag of clothes to their backs. Jest smoking ashes now."
"I must go and see them immediately after breakfast," said Leslie. And, by way of dismissal, she added: "Please bring some hot toast now."
As soon as Mrs. Bussey was out of the room she turned to Burton.
"That is the family whose children threw stones at father yesterday. I'm awfully sorry this happened."
"Yes?"
"Because--oh, you can't imagine how people talk!--some one is sure to say that it happened because they stoned him."
"Oh, how absurd! Who would say that?"
She shook her head with a hopeless gesture. "You don't realize how eager people are to believe evil. It is like the stories of the wolves who devour their companions when they fall. They can't prove anything, but they are all the more ready to talk as though they thought it might be true. But at any rate, they can't claim that he set fire to the Sprigg house since he can't walk. Oh dear, I'm glad he sprained his ankle yesterday!"
"Filial daughter!" said Burton lightly. But his mind was busy with what he had seen in the night. Where had Henry been when he came back from town at two o'clock in the night? It would be fortunate if popular suspicion did indeed fall upon the doctor in this case, since he could more easily prove an alibi than some other members of his family.
"You will see father before you leave, will you not?" asked Leslie, after a moment.
"Yes. And if you really think it wise to visit the scene of disaster this morning, will you not permit me to accompany you?"
"Wise!" she said, with a look of wonder and a cheerless little laugh. "My family is not conspicuous for its wisdom. But I shall be very glad to have you go with me. I am going immediately. Will you see my father first?"
"Yes," he said, rising.
Dr. Underwood had already heard the news. He was up and nearly dressed when he answered Burton's knock at his door.
"So you think you're all right again," the latter said.
"It doesn't make any difference whether I am all right or not," the doctor said impetuously. "I've got to get out. You've heard about the fire?"
"Yes."
"I would have given my right hand to prevent it."
"You weren't given the choice," said Burton coolly, "so your hand is saved to you and you will probably find use for it. What's more, you are going back to bed, and you will stay there until I give you leave to get up."
"The devil I am! What for?"
"Because you can't walk a step on account of your sprained ankle."
Underwood turned to look at him in amaze.
"Oh, can't I?"
"Not a step."
"Suppose I don't agree with you?"
"If my orders are not obeyed, of course I shall throw up the case."
Underwood sat down on the edge of the bed. "So you think it's as bad as that!" he muttered. Suddenly he lifted his head with a keen look at Burton, but if a question were on his lips he checked it there. "All right," he said wearily. "I--I'll leave the case in your hands, Doctor. By the way, you didn't have any reward for your vigil last night, did you? There was no attempt to enter the surgery?"
"Oh, an amateur can't always expect to bag his game at the first shot," Burton said lightly.
He found Miss Underwood ready and waiting when he came downstairs, and they set out at once for the scene of the fire. She looked so thoughtful and preoccupied that he could not fail to realize how serious this affair must seem to her. Could it be that she entertained any of his own uncomfortable doubts as to the accidental character of the fire?
"I am consumed with wonder as to why you are going to visit the Spriggs," he said, as they went out into the shaded street. "Is it pure humanitarianism?"
"No," she said slowly. "I am worried. Of course they can't connect father with it, and yet--I am worried."
"And so you want to be on the field of battle?"
"Yes."
"Well, that's gallant, at any rate."
"But not wise?" she asked seriously.
"I withdraw that word. It is always wise to meet things with courage."
She walked on in silence a few moments.
"But they can't connect father with this, can they?" she asked earnestly.
"Of course not," he said,--and wished they need prepare to face no more serious attack than one on the doctor.
There was a small crowd about the smoking ruins of what had been a sprawling frame dwelling-house. A couple of firemen were still on the grounds, and uncounted boys were shouting with excitement and running about with superfluous activity. The nucleus of the crowd seemed to be an excited and crying woman, and Miss Underwood pressed toward this point. A large man, pompous even at this early morning hour, whose back was toward them as they approached, was talking.
"I have no doubt you are right, ma'am. I heard him say myself that fire would come down and burn them because they threw stones at him. It is an outrage that such a man should be loose in the community. We are none of us safe in our beds."
It was Hadley. Some exclamation made him turn at that moment and he saw Leslie Underwood, and suddenly fell silent. But the woman to whom he had been talking did not fall silent. Instead, she rushed up to Leslie and screamed at her, between angry sobs:
"Yes, you'd better come and look at your father's work. I wonder that you dare show your face! Burnt in our beds we might have been and that's what he meant, and all because the boys threw some bits of stones playful-like at his old buggy. Every one of us might have been burnt to death, and where are our things and our clothes and our home, and where are we going to live? Burnt up by that wicked old man, and I wonder you will show your face in the street!"
Miss Underwood shrank back, speechless and dismayed, before the furious woman, and Burton put himself before her.
"Mrs. Sprigg, your misfortune will make Miss Underwood overlook your words, but nothing will justify or excuse them. You have suffered a loss and we are all sorry for you, and Miss Underwood came here for the express purpose of offering to help you if there is anything she can do. But you must not slander an innocent man. And as for the rest of you," he added, turning with blazing anger to the crowd as a whole, "you must remember that such remarks as I heard when I came up will make you liable to an action for defamation of character. The law does not permit you to charge a man with arson without any ground for doing so."
"If Dr. Underwood didn't do it, who did? Tell me that," a man in the crowd called out.
"I don't have to tell you. That's nonsense. Probably it caught from the chimney."
"The chief says it's incendiary all right. Started in a bedroom on the second floor, in a pile of clothes near a window."
"Even if it were incendiary,--though I don't believe it was--that has nothing to do with Dr. Underwood. He's laid up with a sprained ankle and can't walk a step, let alone climb up to a second story window."
"Well, Henry Underwood hasn't sprained an ankle, has he?" This came from Selby, whom Burton had not noticed before. He thrust himself forward now, and there was something almost like triumph in his excited face.
"What do you mean by bringing his name in?" Burton asked sternly.
"It looks like his work all right. More than one fire has been started by him in High Ridge before this. There are people who haven't forgotten his tricks here six years ago, writing letters about his father, and burning clothes and keeping the whole place stirred up. I'm not surprised he has come to this."
"He ought to be hung for this, that's what he ought," burst in Mrs. Sprigg. "Burning people's houses over their heads, in the dead of night! Hanging's too good for him."
"You have not an atom of evidence to go on," cried Burton, exasperated into argument. "You might just as well accuse me, or Mr. Selby, or any one else. Henry Underwood has no ill-will against you,--"
"The doctor said that fire would come and burn the children up; Mr. Hadley heard him."
"That was nonsense. I heard what he said, too. He was just joking. Besides, that was the doctor, it wasn't Henry."
"If the doctor had a wanted to a done it, he could," said an old man, judicially. "He knows too much for his own good, he does, and too much for the good of the people that go agin him. 'Tain't safe to go agin him. He can make you lay on your back all your life, like he done with Ben Bussey. He'd a been well long afore this if the doctor had treated him right."
"Come away from this," said Burton in a low voice to Leslie. "You see you can do no good. There is no reason why you should endure this."
She let him guide her through the crowd, but as they turned away, Selby called to Burton:
"You say we haven't any evidence. I'm going to get it. There is no one in High Ridge but Henry Underwood who would do such a trick, and I am going to prove it against him. We've stood this just long enough."
Burton made no answer. He was now chiefly anxious to hurry Leslie from an unpleasant scene. But again they were interrupted. Mr. Hadley came puffing after them, with every sign of anxiety in his face.
"Say, Miss Leslie," he began breathlessly, "I didn't mean what I said about not being safe in our beds. You won't mention that to your father, will you? I don't want to get him set against me. I'm sure he wouldn't harm me for the world. I know I'm perfectly safe in my bed, Miss Leslie."
She swept him with a withering look of scorn, and hurried on without a word.
"You see," she said to Burton.
"Yes, I see. It is simply intolerable."
"How can they believe it?"
"I think your father should know what is being said. May I go home with you, and report the affair to him?"
"I shall be thankful if you will."
"You really mean that, don't you? Of course I know that I am nearly a stranger and that I may seem to be pressing into purely family matters. But apart from my interest in anything that concerns Philip, I shall be glad on my own account if I can be of any help to you in a distressing situation."
"Thank you," she said gravely. And after a moment she added, with a whimsical air that was like her father's: "It would hardly be worth while for us to pretend to be strangers, after turning our skeleton-closet into a guest-chamber for you. You know all about us!"
Burton wasn't so sure of that. And he was even less assured after his half-hour conversation with the doctor, whom he found dressed, but certainly not wholly in his right mind.
"I have come to report the progress of the plot," said Burton. "I am glad to inform you that you are not suspected of having fired the Sprigg house with your own hand. Your sprained ankle served you well in that emergency. But your son Henry had no sprained ankle to protect him, so they have quite concluded that it was his doing."
Dr. Underwood looked at him thoughtfully, with no change of expression to indicate that the news was news to him.
"Was the fire incendiary?" he asked after a moment.
"So they assert."
The doctor closed his eyes with his finger-tips and sat silent for a moment.
"Was there any talk of--arrest?"
"There was wild talk, but of course there was nothing to justify an arrest,--no evidence."
"There never is," said the doctor. "This disturber of our peace is very skilful. He swoops down out of the dark, with an accompaniment of mystery and malice, and leaves us blinking, and that's all the satisfaction we get out of it. And the anonymous letters he scatters about are always typewritten."
"Not always," said Burton, resolving swiftly to throw the game into the doctor's hands. He laid before him the slip of paper that had been served upon himself in the night. "You don't, by any chance, recognize that handwriting?"
The doctor took the slip into his own hands and read the message gravely.
"Where did you get this?"
Burton told him the night's adventures in outline, mentioning casually Henry's return to the house at two, and the subsequent attempt of some one to enter his room, and his ineffectual pursuit.
Dr. Underwood listened with a more impassive face than was altogether natural. At the end of the recital he picked up the slip of paper again and studied it.
"I think one of those handwriting experts who analyze forgeries and that sort of thing would say that this was my handwriting, somewhat disguised," he said.
"Yours!" Burton exclaimed, taken by surprise.
"That's what struck me at first sight,--its familiarity. It is like seeing your own ghost. Of course it is obviously disguised, but some of the words look like my writing. You see how I am putting myself into your hands by this admission."
Burton fancied he saw something else, also, and the pathetic heroism of it made his heart swell with sudden emotion.
"A clue!" he cried gaily. "You did it in your sleep! And you wrote those typewritten letters and handbills on the typewriter in your surgery, when you were in the same somnambulic condition! I examined the work of that machine this morning. It corresponds so closely with the sheet you showed me last night that I have no doubt an expert would be able to work out a proof of identity."
"I'll see that the room is locked hereafter at night," said the doctor, with an effort.
"You'd be more likely to catch the villain by leaving the door unlocked and keeping a watch," said Burton, lightly assuming that the capture of the miscreant was still their joint object. "And I'll leave you this new manuscript to add to your collection. It is of no value to me."
'And he presented the incriminating paper to the doctor with a smile and took his leave. To himself, he hoped that enough had been said to make the doctor realize that if the disturber of the peace of High Ridge was not to be caught, it would be best to--get him away.
As he walked toward the hotel, he let himself face the situation frankly. If Henry was, as a matter of fact, the criminal, his firing of the Sprigg house was probably less from malice toward the Spriggs than from the conviction that it would be attributed to the agency of the doctor, whose rash speech about calling down fire on his persecutors had fitted so neatly into the outcome. Like the freakish pranks of which Miss Underwood had told, it was designed to hold the doctor up to public reprobation. Only this was much more serious than those earlier pranks. If a man would go so far as to imperil the lives of an entire family to feed fat his grudge against some one else, and that one his own father, it argued a dangerous degree of abnormality. Was it possible that Leslie Underwood's brother was criminally insane? Suddenly Rachel Overman's face rose before him. He saw just how she would look if such a question were raised about a member of the family from which Philip had chosen his wife.
"Oh, good Lord!" Burton muttered to himself.